Building owner Manny Carreras walks into his building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street with new colorful paint on the windows and door in Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the windows of this building in an effort to bring art into Danbury's urban core and attract more attention and visitors downtown. less

Building owner Manny Carreras walks into his building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street with new colorful paint on the windows and door in Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making ... more

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. scrapes black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the windows of this building in an effort to bring art into Danbury's urban core and attract more attention and visitors downtown. less

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. scrapes black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the ... more

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. and Dana Overland, of Danbury, scrape black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the windows of this building in an effort to bring art into Danbury's urban core and attract more attention and visitors downtown. less

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. and Dana Overland, of Danbury, scrape black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. ... more

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. and Dana Overland, of Danbury, peel black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the windows of this building in an effort to bring art into Danbury's urban core and attract more attention and visitors downtown. less

State Rep. David Arconti, Jr. and Dana Overland, of Danbury, peel black paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. ... more

Building owner Manny Carreras, left, State Rep. David Arconti, Jr., center, and Carrera's restaurant partner Justin Kern scrape paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives Street in downtown Danbury, Conn. Wednesday, July 9, 2014. Artists are making art on the windows of this building in an effort to bring art into Danbury's urban core and attract more attention and visitors downtown. less

Building owner Manny Carreras, left, State Rep. David Arconti, Jr., center, and Carrera's restaurant partner Justin Kern scrape paint off the windows of the building on the corner of White Street and Ives ... more

Volunteers prepare windows at a night club under development on Ives Street in Danbury where the first of several art installations are being prepared.

Volunteers prepare windows at a night club under development on Ives Street in Danbury where the first of several art installations are being prepared.

Photo: Contributed Photo

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Hoping art will boost Danbury's downtown economy

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Volunteers preparing the windows of a downtown Danbury storefront for a new art installation have been attracting a lot of attention.

"Every day someone is knocking on the window or coming into the building to ask us what's going on," said Perry Salvagne Jr., one of several young area professionals who have been volunteering their time to work on the installation.

That's exactly the kind of reaction that officials behind the effort were hoping for. Artists working together with the area business community hope to create more interest in local downtown shopping districts and spur economic development.

"Public art displays can make an area instantly more attractive to both the public and to businesses," said Ted Killmer, who is spearheading the effort for the Cultural Alliance of Western Connecticut. "It creates more vibrancy and the sense that something is happening downtown. It makes people give the area a second look."

Rushton edited a book published last year -- Creative Communities: Art Works in Economic Development -- that discusses how the arts are an a community amenity and an integrated part of the local economy.

"Nobody wants to live in a boring, sterile environment," Rushton said. "And if they don't want to live there they aren't going to want to locate their businesses there either. Many local community leaders are starting to get it. The voices who say, `What does art have to do with economic development?' are getting increasingly rare."

Killmer said the alliance for years has been operating an Accessible Art program that installs art inside public and private buildings in the city's urban core. As an extension of that program, the alliance has begun looking to display art in store windows downtown.

`Be social'

The first installation is in a building along Ives Street where a nightclub is under development. To fit the businesses theme, photographs donated by the Danbury Museum and Historical Society of historic social gathering places will be displayed in the building's windows with a theme of "Be Social."

The group is working with other businesses, including Hodge Insurance on Main Street, to create other installations.

Salvagne, Hodge's vice president of marketing, said he's excited to be a part of the effort.

"Having more arts in the downtown can create more vibrancy and a reason for people to walk around," he said. "For our business, the hope is that it will create more attention for us -- that it will bring more people to our windows, and hopefully through our doors."

A group of artists in Bethel are looking to create art installations in the windows of local store fronts. Bethel Arts, which has been working through the Bethel Chamber of Commerce, is in the early stages of developing a variety of programs to bring more public art into the downtown area -- and more economic activity along with it.

Bill Schroeder, who has been leading the effort, said they are in early discussions about renting a downtown commercial space that could be used as an incubation hub for art apprentices. The group is looking to work with the local schools to have sculptures created by local students that can be displayed downtown.

"A lot of this is still in the early stages, but we are moving forward," he said.

Attracting affluence

Schroeder said he has seen the arts bring more economic vitality to an urban core when he attended college in New York City in the 1970s. Places like Tribeca and Williamsburg, once rundown areas of the city, have become vibrant economic centers because of the arts, he said.

"In Tribeca, artists were coming in and buying lofts for pennies on the dollar," he said. "But once the arts had a foothold and the quality of life improved, the area began attracting young professionals, who then attracted real development dollars. A friend of mine bought an apartment building in Williamsburg in the late 1980s for about $40,000. Today its worth more than $4 million. These once rundown areas are now affluent sections of the city -- all because of the arts."